nd he maintains that all virtue must be founded on such
knowledge. A life without reflection upon the meaning of existence is
unworthy of a man.[1] Hence the famous Socratic dictum, 'Virtue is
knowledge.' Both negatively and positively Socrates held this
principle to be true. For, on the one hand, he who is not conscious of
the good and does not know in what it consists, cannot possibly pursue
it. And, on the other hand, if a man is once alive to his real good,
how can he do otherwise than pursue it? No one therefore does {37}
wrong willingly. Let a man know what is right, and he will do it.
Knowledge of virtue is not, however, distinct from self-interest.
Every one naturally seeks the good simply because he sees that the good
is identical with his ultimate happiness. The wise man is the happy
man. Hence to know oneself is the secret of well-being. Let each be
master of himself, knowing what he seeks, and seeking what he
knows--that, for Socrates, is the first principle of Ethics, the
condition of all moral life. This view is obviously one-sided and
essentially individualistic, excluding all those forms of morality
which are pursued unconsciously, and are due more to the influence of
intuitive perception and social habit than to clear and definite
knowledge. The merit of Socrates, however, lies in his demand for
ethical reflection, and his insistence upon man not only acting
rightly, but acting from the right motive.

2. While Socrates was the first to direct attention to the nature of
virtue, it received from _Plato_ a more systematic treatment. Platonic
philosophy may be described as an extension to the universe of the
principles which Socrates applied to the life of the individual. Plato
attempts to define the end of man by his place in the cosmos; and by
bringing Ethics into connection with Metaphysics he asks What is the
idea of man as a part of universal reality? Two main influences
combined to produce his conception of virtue. First, in opposition to
the Heraclitean doctrine of perpetual change, he contended for
something real and permanent. Second, in antagonism to the Sophistic
theory of the conventional origin of the moral law, he maintained that
man's chief end was the good which was fixed in the eternal nature of
things, and did not consist in the pursuit of transient pleasures.
Hence, in two respects, Plato goes beyond Socrates. He puts opinion,
which is his name for ordinary consciousnes